Confessions of a Borderline Slob – Day 3 – Vacuuming Hacks

By: Rachel, on May 24, 2017

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In my previous blog post, I was just getting started with my cleaning schedule and mentioned that I had to do double duty chores yesterday. And guess what? Check! I did it – dusting and vacuuming! (Insert cheesy pat on the back.) And today I want to share with you my top vacuuming hacks and tips that will change the way you vacuum!

Remember when I said, “It’s not that I’m dirty, per se..”? hah. I take that back! Holy moly dust bunnies and hairballs! I vacuumed under the furniture and radiators and it wasn’t pretty.

Under the couch alone, I found the following hidden treasures: 6 pairs of shoes, 2 pairs of socks, 1 tube of Blistex (hey, that’s where that went!), 3 bags, and 1 awesome umbrella.

They’ve all been tucked away into their proper homes, along with the winter goods – 2 shovels, boots, a hat, gloves, and an ice melt container.

Feeling good about my accomplishments yesterday, I got curious. I flipped the vacuum over to see how bad the brush roll was. I mean, you saw what came out of the vacuum’s canister from the 4-5 times I had to empty it, right? So what was lurking beneath?

My hair sheds like crazy so I’m not surprised, but look at all that hair!! I have always struggled with cleaning out all the hair that gets tangled around the brush roll of my vacuum. If it has too much hair or junk wrapped up there, the brush can’t move and it cannot clean very well. This could even lead to motor burn out.

So what had I been doing to tackle the problem in the past? Forcing a pair of scissors in there to try and cut it out. If you’ve ever done this, you know what a pain it can be and it takes for-freakin-ever. And in the end, I could never get it all out before getting frustrated and giving up.

But holy crap, I just read a tip on Good Housekeeping and it is life-changing! Did you hear me? LIFE-CHANGING!

Pro-tip #4: Use a seam ripper to clean the brush roll.

How cool is that? It literally took only a couple of minutes to get all the hair out! I’m sorry, but if you knew this tip and didn’t tell me, shame on you! So now I’m making sure to pass it on because this just changed my cleaning life! I feel like I should now go back and vacuum again with a clear brush and see how much more I can pick up!

Also, I already knew this one, but thought I’d share this tip as well:

Pro-tip #5: Use your vacuum’s attachments to clean the dust from all those odd things: lampshades, blinds, under couch cushions, bookshelves, sides of furniture, along baseboards and corners, stairs – anywhere that’s a hard to dust or reach by vacuuming regularly.

And finally, I love this tip below. This is how I vacuum and I always wondered if it was just me. It takes a little longer than quickly vacuuming in one pass, but you pick up so much more dirt!

Pro-tip #6: “Carpets and rugs often feel great when brand new, but if vacuuming incorrectly, they will “ugly out” before they wear out. “Don’t vacuum like you are driving a race car,” cautions Paul Iskyan, president of Rug Renovating, a rug and carpet cleaning company in New York City. Instead, use a vacuum with good suction and move in slow, repetitive, overlapping strokes. This will remove up to 85 percent of dust and allergens, while also making high-traffic patterns less noticeable.” Source: today.com

So moving on, today’s (Wednesday) task is the “Monthly Chore”. So I move to the monthly chore section and since it’s the 4th week of the month, I’m supposed to do a Yearly Chore. May’s yearly chore is to clean the outside of the house. As I write this, it’s raining today, so I will probably have to move this task to my Friday catch-up day and do some other organizing within the house today – which is fine because I have plenty left to do! So check back tomorrow to see my progress and get some more tips!

To read the rest of this series on my Cleaning Schedule, you can read more below: